#75: Fanny and Alexander

Fanny And Alexander (Bergman, 1982)

I have so much to say about this one. It's gonna be hard to keep it short. Fanny and Alexander is a late career Bergman film that comes off as a reflection on his whole career. It's supposedly semi-autobiographical and touches on death, religion, spirits, affluence, theater, psychology and perception, and basically all the major themes that formed the basis for his career.

Fanny and Alexander are children of an actor who dies at the beginning of the film. They've spent all their lives in a large mansion with their expansive, wealthy family. But after their father dies, her mother marries a bishop, who insists they cut all ties to their former life. The mother doesn't want to force this on them, but the bishop imposes himself and cuts off all the contact they have with the rest of their family. The mother decides she wants to leave him, but she is unable to because he threatens to sue her for abandonment and take her children. When she sneaks off to spend time with her family, the bishop imposes very harsh Christian punishments. He locks them in their bedroom all day, and he beats Alexander with a cane or forces him to sleep in the attic without food for the slightest infraction. Because of all of this, Alexander wishes for the bishop to die a painful death.

As harshly as the priest is portrayed for the large part of the film in retrospect he's portrayed a little more charitably, and that all ties in to the notion of 'The small world' versus 'The big world' brought up through the film. At the beginning, the father refers to the stage as the 'Little world', and says 'Through the little world, we can be diverted from the big world, or perhaps attain a greater understanding of it'. That line comes off as Bergman speaking directly to his audience, reflecting on film. But later on, the childrens' uncle refers to their sheltered lives in the big luxurious mansion as 'The little world', and says that people get angry and hateful when their little world is taken away from them. Our own personal worlds we live in are a form of stage, and we can't handle having our illusions taken away. The children couldn't live without their version of the world, and it made them wish death to another human being. But at the same time, the bishop's behavior is explained away as just a reflection of the way he was raised. Bergman lets the bad guy off the hook.

Fanny and Alexander could have been Bergman's last film, and if it had been, it would have been the perfect swan song for him, just as Ran was the perfect swan song for Kurosawa.

Rating: ***** / 5

49/101

Others:

Raising Arizona: **** 1/2 / 5

This film seems like it was the inspiration for the show My Name Is Earl. A ex-con who finds out his wife is barren kidnaps a child from a family that had quintuplets. He tries to change his nature and become a better man, and finds he keeps being drawn back to his old behavior. The film manages to tread the line of being funny, entertaining, human and emotional all at the same time.

Law Of Desire: *** / 5

Having seen many of Almodovar's films, I knew he had explicitly sexual dialog, and many of his characters were homosexuals or transsexuals. Still, Law of Desire (One of his earlier films) shocked me with how explicit it was in all of those regards. Basically, a man moves away from a man he loves, and starts up an affair with another man. He still exchanges letters with the first man, but his new lover goes and murders the old lover, out of a desire to possess him. What strikes me the most about Almodovar films is that characters take all these things that we consider controversial and edgy and treat them like they're just a normal fact of nature. It strips away the political aspect of these themes and just tells a love story.

New movies:

Robin Hood: 4/10

Robin Hood is yet another 'Franchise reboot'. It covers all the events that happened prior to what we consider to be the Robin Hood mythology. Robin Hood is reimagined as a willful ultra-masculine principled idealist. This movie was intended to be the 'Batman Begins' or 'Casino Royale' of Robin Hood, and replace the camp with grit. The first half of the film is very successful in doing so, but as the film moves on it becomes more and more cheesy and predictable. And then when they made Maid Marion into a fully modern woman who led troops into battle (Even though it took place in 12th century England), it dispelled all the 'gritty realism' the film earned in the first hour.